Ummm, hasn’t this been generally debunked these days, that, in fact, the children were likely sired by his brother or something like that?

No, the only Hemmings son with Jefferson genes, whether those of Thomas or of one of his nephews, was the youngest. The traceable male-line descendants of the older sons do not have the Jefferson Y-chromosome, and therefore are not descended from any Jefferson.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/12/conservatives-sound-off-on-bob-costas-halftime-gun-control-push/

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/12/03/video-bob-costas-on-gun-control-in-the-middle-of-an-nfl-game/

http://libertysheart.blogspot.com/2012/07/aurora-how-do-we-respond-to-calls-for.html?m=1

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/27/us/trial-opens-for-rowan-in-shooting-of-trespasser.html

Sheldon might have foolish enough to sink $10MM+ into the Presidential race, but I don’t think he’s stupid enough to buy the LAT.

Why does that negate all the work he did in forming this union?

The Smithsonian actually has a statue of him with a backdrop of panels with the names of every one of his slaves on it! Enough already!

They’re trying to discredit the Constitution. Period.

Now I should mention that Thomas Jefferson doesn’t really have that great a record of honesty.

omment by IGotBupkis, Legally Defined Cyberbully in All 57 States (8e2a3d) — 12/3/2012 @ 10:43 pm

Ummm, hasn’t this been generally debunked these days, that, in fact, the children were likely sired by his brother or something like that?

It hasn’t been debunked. It has just been proposed that the DNA evidence is consistent with another possibility other than Thomas Jefferson himself. Th trouble with that is that nobody suggested that in the 19th century – they proposed maternal relatives of Thomas Jefferson.

Against that what we have is what at least one of Sally Hemings children thought or told people, including his explanation of his first name, Madison, and Thomas Jefferson’s favorable treatment of Sally Hemings’ children (which could however also be explained by the fact she was his late wife’s half sister) Eston Hemings, the youngest son, born 1808, through whom the DNA connection was made, also seems to have thought he was Thomas Jefferson’s son, and he changed his name, and looked like him and his descendants eventually passed for white.

The whole thing make sense, and the coverup was a model used by other people including Bill Clinton.

The key aspect of the coverup was to spread a rebutable version of the story. The key lie was “dusky Sally”

Sally Hemings, however, was 3/4 white.

Now people who had read Jefferson’s 1784 book (written before any relationship could possibly have begun) knew that he (said he) was not physically attracted to blacks. He would have no reason to lie about this in 1784. So if you thought Sally Hemings was dark skinned, you’d think he whole thing was very improbable. But she was white, or white looking, and his late wife’s younger half sister.

Another lie was about young Tom, apparently their first child, born 1790. He had died. But in the story he as still live so finding no Tom, or an obviously wrong candidate for Tom, and there was one, you’d think the whole story was false.

I’m sure a number of people over the generations knew the story (from personal contact originally) and they studied it and maybe aught others, and it was used by the best criminal defense lawyers.

I suppose her children thought Thomas Jefferson mad a mistake. He should have brought her back to Virginia, yes (she had to come voluntarily) but brought her back as a free white woman and married her and lied about who she was instead of lying about their relationship.